Slavoj Žižek - 08/07/2013
Interview · Roda Viva ·
2013-08-07 · 1:19:34 · 8,711 words
capitalismcommunism-socialismideologyhegel-dialecticspsychoanalysisecology-climatedemocracygeopolitics-wartechnology-ai-cyberspacehistoryeconomicsliberalism-political-correctnessphilosophy-generalsubjectivity
A wide-ranging media interview with Žižek, likely recorded for a Brazilian audience, in which he defends the continued relevance of Hegel as a philosophical tool for renewing the left after the failures of 20th-century communism. He argues that capitalism and democracy are gradually writing divorce papers, with an authoritarian 'capitalism with Asian values' emerging as the likely successor. He critiques left positions from inside, dismissing anti-state direct democracy, primordial-ecology rhetoric, anti-financial-capital populism, and easy celebration of Latin American models, while insisting on the communist priority of reclaiming the commons (ecology, biogenetics, intellectual property). The talk also covers ideology critique in the age of cynicism, the Lacanian logic of desire and envy, and the depoliticizing effect of reformulating racism as a problem of tolerance.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 19
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
Hegel's world spirit, invoked by Žižek via the image of Hegel seeing Napoleon on horseback, to illustrate how a contingent particular person or event can embody a universal historical necessity.
Žižek uses alienation in both a Hegelian sense, the irreducible gap between intention and result in social action, and a Marxist sense of capital as alien power, emphasizing the Hegelian meaning as structurally necessary.
as “retroactive reversal of contingency into necessity”
Žižek's formulation of the Hegelian insight that a fully contingent event, a chance encounter, a historical rupture, retroactively appears as fate or necessity once it has occurred.
Žižek's Hegelian point, illustrated by the name 'psychoanalysis', that genuine analysis already contains its own synthetic result and does not require a separate external synthesis.
Žižek's label for the shared narrative structure in Marx, Heidegger, Derrida, and Nietzsche: at the moment of greatest danger a saving reversal becomes possible, a structure he thinks we should abandon.
Žižek's self-critical observation that leftists who proclaim a global crisis are unconsciously Eurocentric, the 'crisis' is a Western European phenomenon while BRIC countries are expanding.
Žižek's phrase for the emerging form of capitalism, authoritarian, technocratic, state-directed, that he predicts will globally displace the European democratic-capitalist synthesis, exemplified by Singapore and China.
as “marriage and divorce of capitalism and democracy”
Žižek's metaphor for the historical bond between liberal democracy and capitalism that is now fraying: both parties are already writing divorce papers though the marriage is not yet formally dissolved.
Žižek's wordplay on 'Fidel Castro' to name the Cuban ideological position: boasting loss and decay as proof of socialist authenticity rather than as failure.
as “capitalism approaching zero point”
Žižek's thesis that capitalism is approaching a structural limit, through ecological exhaustion, biogenetic transformation, and the insolubility of intellectual property, beyond which it cannot simply continue.
as “commons”
Žižek uses the Marxist concept to designate the shared foundations of social life, nature, the genetic inheritance, and general intellect/knowledge, whose privatization defines the new capitalism and whose reclamation defines communism.
as “return from profit to rent”
Žižek's thesis, drawing on Marx, that contemporary capitalism increasingly generates wealth through privatizing the commons (knowledge, nature) rather than through surplus-value extraction in production.
Marx's term invoked by Žižek to explain the wealth of figures like Bill Gates: they own part of the collective space of knowledge and extract rent from it rather than profit from exploitation.
Walter Benjamin's metaphor, embraced by Žižek: political intervention is not riding the train of history forward but pulling the emergency brake to stop the spontaneous tendency toward catastrophe.
Marx's concept mentioned by Žižek in the context of Karatani's project of inventing 'good money' free of fetishism, which Žižek doubts is possible for psychoanalytic reasons.
Žižek's psychoanalytically grounded claim that envy, not objective need, is the basic driver of desire, rendering utopian formulas like 'to each according to his needs' naive.
as “desire is the other's desire”
Lacan's formula, cited by Žižek to ground his claim that human needs are always mediated through envy, we desire what others desire, not what we objectively require.
as “gray on gray”
Hegel's phrase cited by Žižek to rebut the Marxist idea that philosophy can identify the trend of history and act as its agent: philosophy arrives only after the fact, painting what has already occurred.
as “tolerance as depoliticization”
Žižek's critique of the liberal-multicultural reflex of framing racism as a problem of personal intolerance, which displaces structural/economic analysis with cultural-psychological therapy.
Stories he reaches for 9
Žižek argues that Gates's enormous wealth cannot be explained by exploitation alone: he privatized part of the collective 'general intellect', the internet, shared knowledge, and we pay him rent for it.
“he owns part of what we Marx called general intellect, our common space of knowledge, internet the way... and we are paying him a rent. He privatized commons.”
The Politburo debates whether communism will have money: Bukharin says yes, Trotskyists say no. Stalin proposes a dialectical synthesis, there will be money and there will not be money. Asked to explain: 'Some people will have money and other people will not have money.'
“no it will be a dialectical synthesis. There will be money and there will not be money... some people will have money and other people will not have money”
Žižek cites a wheelchair controlled directly by thought to illustrate both the emancipatory promise and the threat of brain-machine interfaces: what goes out also goes in, enabling external control of the mind.
“you think something, it happens. Unfortunately, what goes out goes also in back, no? So how can they control you?”
Žižek observes that Martin Luther King never used the word 'tolerance', he did not ask whites to tolerate blacks more, revealing that the modern liberal reflex of framing racism as a tolerance problem is historically recent and politically regressive.
“Look Martin Luther King. He never uses the term tolerance. He doesn't say whites should tolerate us more.”
Žižek tells the Cuban he is describing the psychoanalytic 'movement of castration', boasting loss as authenticity, and notes it is no accident their leader is called 'Fidel Castro': fidelity to castration.
“no wonder your leader is called Fidel Castro like fidelity to castration”
Against the communist consolation that crisis is the darkness before dawn, Žižek quips that there is indeed a light at the end of the tunnel, it is another train coming toward us, i.e., the spontaneous trajectory is catastrophic.
“of course there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it's another train coming towards us, you know?”
Peter Sloterdijk's prediction that future monuments will be built to Lee Kuan Yew, inventor of Singapore's authoritarian capitalism and the model Deng Xiaoping explicitly adopted for China.
“Lee Kuan Yew, the founder of modern Singapore who is precisely the inventor of authoritarian capitalism.”
At Occupy Wall Street, Žižek asked protesters the Freudian question, 'What do you want?', and found it far harder to answer than Freud's original question about women, pointing to the absent positive program of the movement.
“I was always asking the demonstration there the simple Freudian question that Freud was asking women, you know 'What do you want?'... I think it's much more difficult to answer what do the protesters want.”
In Havana, a pro-regime Cuban told Žižek with perverse pride that at least one building collapses in the city every day, the decay itself serving as proof of incorruptible socialist authenticity.
“Do you know that every day in Havana at least one building collapses? You see the misery. Our very decay is a proof of our authenticity.”
Works invoked 8
Žižek calls it the best candidate for the greatest philosophical book of all time; praises its crazy inconsistency and jumps as features, not flaws; a story that shows the reader why it is relevant to social and political life.
Grundrisse book
Žižek reads the historical narrative of the Grundrisse as an instance of the Hölderlin paradigm: primitive fullness → alienation → proletarian emptiness → reversal, a structure he thinks we should move beyond.
Science of Logic book
Both Marx and Lenin turned to Hegel's Logic in moments of political crisis, it is what provides conceptual tools to renew the left when things go wrong.
Žižek's own recently-translated book, mentioned as developing his thesis that capitalism is approaching a zero point through ecological, biogenetic, and intellectual-property crises.
The Laws of Manu book
The basic Indian caste-system text is cited as evidence that the 'pre-colonial tradition' anti-colonialists want to recover was itself systematized by the British in the 18th century to rule the colonized, the origin is already contaminated.
State and Revolution book
Cited as a blueprint for direct democracy that Lenin himself immediately contradicted in practice, illustrating the irreducible gap between program and realization.
Theses on Feuerbach essay
Thesis 11 ('Philosophers have only interpreted the world, the time is to change it') is cited ironically: Hegel, who only wanted to interpret, contributed more to changing the world than any activist philosopher.
Cavell's book on remarriage comedies is used as a structural model: authentic love (and authentic revolution) must pass through disillusionment and repetition before becoming real.
People invoked 36
Jacques Derrida negative
Listed alongside Marx, Heidegger, and Nietzsche as another thinker caught in the Hölderlin paradigm of dangerous moment and saving reversal.
Paul Krugman positive
Called 'intelligent'; his answer to the journalist, that knowing what went wrong in advance would have changed nothing, is cited approvingly as revealing the structural compulsion behind elite decisions.
Identified (via Sloterdijk) as the inventor of authoritarian capitalism and the model for Deng Xiaoping's China; Žižek uses him to illustrate the threat to European democratic legacy.
Ayn Rand negative
Described as 'the ultimate capitalist ideologist'; Greenspan is a direct pupil of Rand; the 2008 crisis was a pure Ayn Rand free-market crisis, exposing the bankruptcy of her objectivism.
Vladimir Lenin positive
Cited positively: Lenin read Hegel's Logic in moments of political crisis; also cited as an example of the gap between written program and actual deed, State and Revolution contradicted by what actually happened.
Mentioned as having visited Singapore and declared it the model for China, confirming the authoritarian-capitalist trajectory.
Jacques Lacan positive
Cited on 'my desire is the other's desire' to ground the claim that envy and mediation through the Other are fundamental to human desire, undermining straightforward needs-based utopias.
John Rawls negative
His theory of justice is cited alongside Marx's needs formula as failing for the same psychoanalytic reason: both assume transparent, non-envious needs that psychoanalysis shows do not exist.
Stephen Hawking negative
Dismissed as exemplifying the scientistic view that physics and brain science can replace philosophy; Žižek argues the opposite.
Mentioned as an example of revolt emerging at a moment of relative opening rather than maximum repression, Nagy was already prime minister when the 1956 Hungarian revolt occurred.
Francis Fukuyama negative
Žižek describes a debate in which he accepted Fukuyama's 'capitalism won' thesis only to turn it against him by noting that communists now best manage capitalism.
Mentioned briefly as the Politburo 'revisionist' position in the Stalin joke: there will be money in communism.
Alan Greenspan negative
Cited as a direct pupil of Ayn Rand and objectivist; the Tea Party's blaming of the welfare state for the crisis is absurd because Greenspan/free-market ideology produced it.
Mir-Hossein Mousavi positive
Cited as a wonderful example of unexpected emancipatory potential: not a pro-Western liberal reformist but the re-emergence of the more emancipatory dimension of the Khomeini revolution itself.
Álvaro García Linera positive
Described as a comrade-theorist and friend; Žižek praises his honest, pragmatic acknowledgment that indigenous social movements quickly become corrupted when representatives move to La Paz.
Mentioned as one of Chavez's foreign-policy friends, used to illustrate the problematic nature of Chavez's international alignments.
Antonio Negri negative
Negri and his associates are criticized for claiming we are in an era of molecular multiplicities and disappearing states; Žižek argues the opposite: states are playing stronger and stronger regulatory roles.
Tariq Ali negative
Described as a friend (met at New Left Review); Žižek 'radically disagrees' with his claim that Europe should look to Latin America as a political model.
Fredric Jameson negative
Described as a friend who is wrong on one point: the claim that we live in a totally cynical era where ideology critique is no longer needed; Žižek argues we need critique precisely because cynics are the most captured by illusions.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva positive
Workers' Party government assessed as pragmatically positive within the constraints of global capitalism; important because it demonstrated that the rules of global capitalism are not as ironclad as claimed.
Evo Morales negative
His letter to world leaders blaming capitalism for killing Mother Earth is cited as exemplifying the wrong, primordial-ecological, way to approach ecological problems.
Kojin Karatani negative
Described as a Japanese friend whose project of inventing 'good money' free of commodity fetishism Žižek finds interesting but ultimately does not accept, for psychoanalytic reasons.
Peter Sloterdijk positive
Described as a right-wing friend whose thought Žižek shares on this point: Sloterdijk predicts that future monuments will be built to Lee Kuan Yew as the inventor of authoritarian capitalism.
Mentioned briefly as a colleague at New Left Review; Žižek visited him in London.
Martin Heidegger negative
Cited as an exemplar of the Hölderlin paradigm: technology endangers humanity's essence, but the Kehre (reversal) offers salvation, a structure Žižek criticizes.
Eric Ambler positive
Described as a 'progressive detective writer in the late 30s'; his unnamed spy novel contains a character whose cynical adoption of communism becomes genuine, used to illustrate that effects can authenticate cynical origins.
Walter Benjamin positive
His emergency brake metaphor, intervening to stop the train of history rather than riding it, is embraced by Žižek as the correct political orientation; though Žižek criticizes Benjamin's eschatological streak.
Stanley Cavell positive
His book on Hollywood comedies of remarriage is used as a structural model for authentic revolution: first enthusiasm, then disillusionment, then the true second struggle.
Friedrich Hölderlin negative
The line 'Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst das Rettende auch' is cited as the signature of what Žižek calls the Hölderlin paradigm, a structure of crisis-and-redemption shared by Marx, Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Derrida that Žižek wants to abandon.
Martin Luther King Jr. positive
Cited as evidence that the tolerance-framing of racism is historically recent and regressive: King never used the word 'tolerance,' never asked whites to tolerate blacks more.
Hugo Chávez negative
Žižek credits Chavez with the authentic insight that favela populations must become political agents, not mere charity recipients; but criticizes his economic mismanagement, throwing money at problems, and his friendship with Lukashenko.
Source of several political jokes Žižek recounts, including the 'dialectical synthesis' on money in communism; invoked negatively as the exemplar of the Stalinist idea that history has a higher necessity.
Karl Marx positive
Žižek claims to remain a Marxist but critical: he values Marx's insight that capitalism must be passed through, and his concepts of general intellect and commons, while criticizing the Grundrisse narrative structure as a Hölderlin paradigm.
Sigmund Freud positive
Invoked in multiple registers: his 'What does the woman want?' question applied to Occupy protesters; his psychoanalytic insight that we do not know what we want; 'psychoanalysis' as the model for analysis-as-synthesis.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Central philosophical resource: Žižek advocates returning to Hegel as the answer to the deadlock of the left, praising his theory of contingency/necessity, his logic, his theory of monarchy, and his insight that philosophy arrives after the fact.
Friedrich Nietzsche negative
Cited briefly as another thinker sharing the Hölderlin paradigm structure.
What it argues
Return to Hegel as tool for renewing the left after 20th-century failuresCapitalism with Asian values and the divorce of capitalism from democracyThe commons — ecology, biogenetics, intellectual property — as communist priorityCrisis of revolutionary agency and absence of a positive political programRetroactive reversal of contingency into necessity (love, history, colonialism)The logic of envy and learned desire via Lacan and FreudIdeology critique remains necessary precisely in an age of cynicism
Dialectical moves 10
“The only philosopher who really only wanted to interpret the world was Hegel, and isn't the beautiful irony that he was the one who maybe most contributed to changing the world?”
Žižek inverts Marx's Thesis 11: the philosopher who renounced changing the world effected the greatest historical change, undermining the opposition between theory and practice.
“Something contingently happens but once it's here it's necessary — the retroactive reversal of contingency into necessity.”
A contingent event (a chance encounter, a historical rupture) retroactively appears as fate; necessity is not prior to contingency but produced by it after the fact.
“When an idea is realized in a wrong terrifying way, there must have been something wrong with the idea itself.”
The failure of a historical realization is not external to the idea but indexes an internal flaw; bad implementation is never purely accidental.
“Analysis is already as it were its own synthesis — the synthesis question is the wrong question.”
The psychoanalytic model shows that genuine conceptual analysis already contains its result; demanding a further synthesis is a misunderstanding of how thinking works.
“Today the point is no longer to ride the train of history, we are all on that train, but to pull the emergency brake.”
Against the Marxist image of history as a train one boards as its beneficiary, Benjamin and Žižek insist the spontaneous trajectory is catastrophic and must be stopped.
“Of course there is a light at the end of the tunnel — it's another train coming towards us.”
The communist consolation that crisis is the darkness before emancipatory dawn is itself the danger: the train of history is coming toward us, not carrying us forward.
“Precisely the utter cynics who claim 'forget values, it's all brutal power and money' are the most deeply in their illusions.”
Far from escaping ideology, those who most loudly disavow values are most completely captured by them, cynicism is not the outside of ideology but its most refined form.
“The dream of modern emancipated decolonized India did not pre-exist colonization — it was produced retroactively by the very fact of being colonized.”
The anti-colonial ideal of authentic pre-colonial identity is a retroactive fiction generated by colonization itself, making the return to origins both impossible and a colonial trap.
“Something can start as a total manipulation and then become authentic — what matters are effects.”
The authenticity or inauthenticity of an origin does not determine the reality of subsequent effects; outcomes can transcend and transform the cynicism of their starting point.
“Capitalism is not simply negative — it's the greatest thing, but it develops with new and new tensions that cannot indefinitely continue.”
Against both right celebration and left simple negation, capitalism is genuinely productive but structurally generates the contradictions that will force its own supersession.
Claims 22
rejects
Philosophy is not over: new ecological, biogenetic, and technological dilemmas demand properly philosophical thinking more than ever.Hawking's claim that physics and brain science can replace philosophy
asserts
China proves that communists can be the best managers of contemporary capitalism, making that variety of communism obsolete as an emancipatory project.the fate of Stalinist communism
asserts
When an idea realizes itself in a wrong and terrifying way, there must have been something wrong with the idea itself — it is not merely a matter of bad implementation.the failure of 20th-century Marxism
asserts
Returning to Hegel is the necessary philosophical response to the deadlock of the left and the catastrophes of 20th-century Marxism.renewal of the left
asserts
The new emerging capitalism will be capitalism with Asian values — more autocratic and state-directed — dissolving the historical marriage between capitalism and democracy.the future of capitalism
asserts
Revolutions and revolts do not happen when things are at their worst but when a relative opening raises expectations that are then frustrated.the dynamics of revolt
asserts
Hegel was the only philosopher who truly only wanted to interpret the world, and ironically contributed more to changing it than any other philosopher.the paradox of Hegel vs. Marx's thesis 11
asserts
The present crisis is a terrible defeat for the left: there is no revolutionary force, no positive program, despite near-revolutionary conditions in Greece and elsewhere.the crisis of the left
asserts
Latin America has not yet produced anything with global meaning that can serve as a model for Europe or the rest of the world.the global significance of Latin American left experiments
asserts
Cuba is not a model for the future: its ideological pride in decay exemplifies a 'movement of castration' rather than authentic socialist achievement.Cuba as political model
asserts
Contemporary capitalism's key problems — ecology, biogenetics, intellectual property — are problems of the commons, which is why we must remain communists.the communist horizon
asserts
Capitalism is increasingly returning from profit to rent: figures like Bill Gates own privatized parts of the general intellect and extract rent from the commons.the transformation of capital accumulation
rejects
The anti-financial-capital rhetoric of Occupy Wall Street is a pseudo-alternative: real capital needs financial capital, and there is no 'real economy' opposed to finance.anti-financial-capital populism
rejects
The 2008 financial crisis was not caused by evil greedy bankers but by a bipartisan economic policy designed to restart prosperity after the digital bubble collapse.right-wing banker conspiracy theory of the crisis
asserts
Utter cynics — those who claim values are illusions and only power and money matter — are the most deeply captured by ideological illusions.the need for ideology critique
rejects
Reformulating racism as a problem of tolerance is a liberal depoliticization that substitutes cultural-psychological therapy for analysis of legal and economic structures.tolerance discourse in liberalism
asserts
We need strong trans-state collective action — not local participatory democracy — to confront ecology, biogenetics, and the global commons.the correct form of political organization
rejects
Marx's formula 'to each according to his needs' fails for psychoanalytic reasons: envy fundamentally mediates and distorts what we take our needs to be.Marx's communist distribution principle
asserts
The pre-colonial ideal that anti-colonial movements wish to recover was itself produced retroactively by colonization — there is no pre-existing authentic origin to return to.anti-colonial romanticism and return to roots
rejects
The 'Mother Earth' ecology of Evo Morales — blaming capitalism for disturbing primordial holistic unity — is absolutely the wrong way to approach ecological problems.indigenist primordial ecology
asserts
The spontaneous tendency of history — the train left to run on its own — leads toward new forms of apartheid, authoritarian division, and genetic stratification, not emancipation.the trajectory of capitalism without intervention
asserts
China is practicing an economic colonialism that in some respects is more brutal than Western capitalist colonialism — exemplified by its treatment of Greece's port of Piraeus.China's geopolitical role
Quotes 20
“doesn't China prove that communists are the best managers of today's capitalism?”Slavoj Žižek · communists as capitalism's best managers
“when an idea is realized in a wrong terrifying way, there must have been something wrong with the idea itself”Slavoj Žižek · failure of realization indexes internal flaw of the idea
“Hegel saw in such a perfect way this, as it were, retroactive reversal of contingency into necessity. Something contingently happens but once it's here it's necessary.”Slavoj Žižek · retroactive reversal of contingency into necessity
“analysis it's already as it were its own synthesis”Slavoj Žižek · analysis as its own synthesis
“Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst das Rettende auch. Where the danger is the greatest, there also the saving redeeming dimension emerges.”Slavoj Žižek · Hölderlin paradigm — danger and salvation
“the eternal marriage between democracy and capitalism is not yet broken but how should I put it, both parties are already writing divorce papers, no?”Slavoj Žižek · divorce of capitalism and democracy
“Philosophers have only interpreted the world, the time is to change it... ask yourself a stupid naive question. But my god, were philosophers really doing this?”Slavoj Žižek · ironic reversal of Marx's Thesis 11
“the only philosopher who really only wanted to interpret the world, who consciously renounced changing it is Hegel. And isn't the beautiful irony he was the one who maybe most contributed to changing the world?”Slavoj Žižek · paradox of Hegel vs. Thesis 11
“today the point is no longer to ride the train of history, we are all on that train, but to pull the emergency brake. So that it stops.”Slavoj Žižek · Benjamin's emergency brake
“of course there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it's another train coming towards us, you know?”Slavoj Žižek · spontaneous historical trajectory is catastrophic
“in psychoanalytic theory we call this when you boast the loss itself as sign of authenticity the movement of castration”Slavoj Žižek · movement of castration — boasting loss as authenticity
“no wonder your leader is called Fidel Castro like fidelity to castration”Slavoj Žižek · fidelity to castration / Cuban ideology
“my desire is the other's desire”Slavoj Žižek · Lacanian mediation of desire through the Other
“philosophy can only paint gray on gray”Slavoj Žižek · Hegel — philosophy arrives after the fact
“precisely the utter cynics, you know who claim 'huh what values, everything is just brutal power, money, pleasure, sex', they are the most deeply in their illusions”Slavoj Žižek · cynicism as the deepest ideological illusion
“the crisis was not a product of welfare state idealists. It was the product of utter cynics being in power.”Slavoj Žižek · cynics produced the crisis, not idealists
“whenever we speak about racism, feminism or whatever, we always reformulate the problem as the problem of tolerance”Slavoj Žižek · tolerance discourse as political reformulation of racism
“Instead of analyzing legal, economic conditions, it becomes a problem of cultural tolerance. Like why do I hate you if you are black?”Slavoj Žižek · tolerance discourse depoliticizes racism
“we like to have good jobs there at universities and we love revolutions on one condition: that they happen far enough”Slavoj Žižek · European left's comfortable distance from revolutions
“something can start as a total manipulation and then who knows it becomes authentic. What matters are effects.”Slavoj Žižek · authenticity is determined by effects not origins
Transcript 70 turns
unknown
Maybe we can put all this together but I doubt the result would be very interesting. But my basic love is philosophy. And let me tell you something that maybe will be of some interest to your readers. I
Maybe we can put all this together but I doubt the result would be very interesting. But my basic love is philosophy. And let me tell you something that maybe will be of some interest to your readers. I
Slavoj Žižek
don't think as even some scientists think today, like
don't think as even some scientists think today, like
unknown
Stephen Hawking, that the time of philosophy is over. Today, quantum physics or brain sciences can answer even philosophical questions like does our universe have an origin, is there free will and so on. No, I think that the new ethical and other ecological dilemmas that we are confronted today almost demand all of us to if not become philosophers, to raise properly philosophical questions. For example, one field which immensely interests me and I try to find friends there to learn what goes on. How do we experience ourselves as persons? I think reality is out there. Somehow I am free to think whatever I want. But do you know that today we are already making great steps into directly linking our thought processes to external machinery? For example, I saw in London a wheelchair for crippled people which is run directly by your thoughts. Like you just think strongly forward,
Stephen Hawking, that the time of philosophy is over. Today, quantum physics or brain sciences can answer even philosophical questions like does our universe have an origin, is there free will and so on. No, I think that the new ethical and other ecological dilemmas that we are confronted today almost demand all of us to if not become philosophers, to raise properly philosophical questions. For example, one field which immensely interests me and I try to find friends there to learn what goes on. How do we experience ourselves as persons? I think reality is out there. Somehow I am free to think whatever I want. But do you know that today we are already making great steps into directly linking our thought processes to external machinery? For example, I saw in London a wheelchair for crippled people which is run directly by your thoughts. Like you just think strongly forward,
Slavoj Žižek
it moves forward and so on. So this sounds great, my god, we are like gods. You think something, it happens. Unfortunately, what goes out goes also in back, no? So how can they control you? But you see, then we ask what will become of us? Is this still the same human being? Our very identity is based on this difference between my inner life and outer life. So just to give you one example of how we are really in the middle of a tremendous global revolution. And here I think old ethical, religious systems cannot help us. It all depends on what do you think is a story. Look what is maybe the best candidate, I think it would get more votes for the greatest philosophical book of all times, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. It is a story, but it’s a crazy story, totally inconsistent. It jumps here and there and so on. You know, I don’t like books which made it clear from the very beginning this is what we try to prove and so on and so on. I think we should trust the readers to discover through the material itself why can such a crazy big fat book be relevant for our social life, for our political life today. Because sorry, to what I plea for, to return to Hegel today, I think is for me precisely an answer to the deadlock of today's left, to the catastrophes, not everything was a catastrophe but nonetheless a failure of the 20th century left where at least in Europe we see it like this, Stalinist communism failed. The only success of communists was that, and this is a nice debate I had with Fukuyama, I told him listen maybe you are right, capitalism won, but doesn't China prove that communists are the best managers of today's capitalism? So that type
it moves forward and so on. So this sounds great, my god, we are like gods. You think something, it happens. Unfortunately, what goes out goes also in back, no? So how can they control you? But you see, then we ask what will become of us? Is this still the same human being? Our very identity is based on this difference between my inner life and outer life. So just to give you one example of how we are really in the middle of a tremendous global revolution. And here I think old ethical, religious systems cannot help us. It all depends on what do you think is a story. Look what is maybe the best candidate, I think it would get more votes for the greatest philosophical book of all times, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. It is a story, but it’s a crazy story, totally inconsistent. It jumps here and there and so on. You know, I don’t like books which made it clear from the very beginning this is what we try to prove and so on and so on. I think we should trust the readers to discover through the material itself why can such a crazy big fat book be relevant for our social life, for our political life today. Because sorry, to what I plea for, to return to Hegel today, I think is for me precisely an answer to the deadlock of today's left, to the catastrophes, not everything was a catastrophe but nonetheless a failure of the 20th century left where at least in Europe we see it like this, Stalinist communism failed. The only success of communists was that, and this is a nice debate I had with Fukuyama, I told him listen maybe you are right, capitalism won, but doesn't China prove that communists are the best managers of today's capitalism? So that type
unknown
of communism is out. Social democratic welfare state, sorry, is out and so on and so on. So while I am still a Marxist, but we should not play this boring game of oh the
of communism is out. Social democratic welfare state, sorry, is out and so on and so on. So while I am still a Marxist, but we should not play this boring game of oh the
unknown
idea was good, they just did it wrongly in Russia. No, no, we learn this from Hegel, when an idea is realized in a wrong terrifying way, there must have been something wrong with the idea itself. So this is the real practical, as they put it in French enjeu, the stake of this book, to provide
idea was good, they just did it wrongly in Russia. No, no, we learn this from Hegel, when an idea is realized in a wrong terrifying way, there must have been something wrong with the idea itself. So this is the real practical, as they put it in French enjeu, the stake of this book, to provide
Slavoj Žižek
conceptual tools to renew the left. But I am not even original here, you must know that, sorry just to finish that in all big moments of crisis like revolution in Europe it went wrong. What did Marx do? Start to read Hegel's logic. it went wrong. I mean the fiasco of First World War One. What did Lenin do? Read Hegel's logic. I wouldn’t be so pretentious but I would say that I wouldn’t take that Hegel only as a metaphor. This, you know, he saw there, he meant yes Napoleon on a horse, it’s as if Weltgeist, the spirit of the world is riding there. That this is I think one of the deepest speculative insights of Hegel. You see with your wonderful remark we touched a very theoretical problem. Hegel for me is not a crazy guy who thought I can develop everything out of logical necessity. Hegel was fully aware that for a logical or conceptual necessity to actualize, realize itself, it has to attach itself to a totally contingent moment. This is why very strangely I always celebrated as potentially democratic Hegel’s theory of monarchy. For Hegel, the point of monarch is not that he is divine but that he is, Hegel says somewhere, a kind of average idiot like all of us. Hegel saw clearly that if you have a government which is justified by some higher right, divine right or expert knowledge and so on, you get alienation and so on. On the top, there must be, to put it ironically, an idiot like all of us. You know Hegel, this is the same logic and when Hegel says this is why in courts we need the jury. Yes, we need lawyers, experts to do it, but the final decision must be with the jury which is in a contingent way selected from our peers. And that’s the Hegel’s point. The monarch is just the representation of utter contingency. Hegel says who is a monarch? Is he wise or not? We don’t know and it shouldn’t matter. Hegel says the function of
conceptual tools to renew the left. But I am not even original here, you must know that, sorry just to finish that in all big moments of crisis like revolution in Europe it went wrong. What did Marx do? Start to read Hegel's logic. it went wrong. I mean the fiasco of First World War One. What did Lenin do? Read Hegel's logic. I wouldn’t be so pretentious but I would say that I wouldn’t take that Hegel only as a metaphor. This, you know, he saw there, he meant yes Napoleon on a horse, it’s as if Weltgeist, the spirit of the world is riding there. That this is I think one of the deepest speculative insights of Hegel. You see with your wonderful remark we touched a very theoretical problem. Hegel for me is not a crazy guy who thought I can develop everything out of logical necessity. Hegel was fully aware that for a logical or conceptual necessity to actualize, realize itself, it has to attach itself to a totally contingent moment. This is why very strangely I always celebrated as potentially democratic Hegel’s theory of monarchy. For Hegel, the point of monarch is not that he is divine but that he is, Hegel says somewhere, a kind of average idiot like all of us. Hegel saw clearly that if you have a government which is justified by some higher right, divine right or expert knowledge and so on, you get alienation and so on. On the top, there must be, to put it ironically, an idiot like all of us. You know Hegel, this is the same logic and when Hegel says this is why in courts we need the jury. Yes, we need lawyers, experts to do it, but the final decision must be with the jury which is in a contingent way selected from our peers. And that’s the Hegel’s point. The monarch is just the representation of utter contingency. Hegel says who is a monarch? Is he wise or not? We don’t know and it shouldn’t matter. Hegel says the function of
unknown
the monarch is to sign his name. But again, what do, let me give you another example which you will maybe all of us should like more. What Hegel is describing is something I claim that we should all know and I'm here an incurable romantic in love. Not this postmodern self-expression where you want to
the monarch is to sign his name. But again, what do, let me give you another example which you will maybe all of us should like more. What Hegel is describing is something I claim that we should all know and I'm here an incurable romantic in love. Not this postmodern self-expression where you want to
Slavoj Žižek
satisfy your needs or whatever, but you know old-fashioned real love. Like you walk on the street, you slip on a banana, you twist your leg, they take you to emergency, there is a nurse there, totally contingent, and then you discover my god maybe, not necessarily, this is the love of my life. Something happens totally contingently but once it happens it appears like fate. Hegel saw in such a perfect way this, as it were, retroactive reversal of contingency into necessity. Something contingently happens but once it’s here it’s necessary. Okay, you asked basically three or four questions here, masked as one. Okay, let me try to be brief enough. First about bringing all these aspects together. You know, I don't like so much big synthesis. You know, and I will give you one theoretical test here. You know, it's not a chance that psychoanalysis is called psychoanalysis. If you want to identify an idiot, it's the guy who says but Freud does only psychoanalysis, now we need someone to put all together in a synthesis. Wrong question. Analysis it’s already as it were its own synthesis. So back to your final question which was about... I can only give you a very of course abstract answer, abstract in the Hegelian sense of just a scheme, because to develop it would need much more time, precise references. But my idea is, this may tough, sound tough for some hardline Marxists. My idea is that the 20th century Marxism, but even the Marxism of Marx, okay he wasn’t a Marxist but let’s call it Marxist teaching, was too much part of what I ironically like to refer to as Hölderlin paradigm. Hölderlin, the German poet, whose best known line, the best, the greatest hit as it were is the one endlessly quoted by Heidegger: Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst das Rettende auch. Where the danger is the greatest, there also the saving redeeming dimension emerges. This vision of history that we are now at the moment of greatest crisis, like at the very bottom, but at this point there is a possibility of turning it around. Like isn’t this what, for example, all Heidegger is about? With technology the very essence of humanity is in danger, but possibility of what Heidegger calls Kehre, reversal, new event, new disclosure of being. Even Marx, in, isn’t the basic structure of history, structure of history of his Grundrisse fragments? That history begins with some substantial fullness, primitive societies, then you have gradual alienation which goes on and on, then with proletariat you have utter alienation, the subject is reduced to
satisfy your needs or whatever, but you know old-fashioned real love. Like you walk on the street, you slip on a banana, you twist your leg, they take you to emergency, there is a nurse there, totally contingent, and then you discover my god maybe, not necessarily, this is the love of my life. Something happens totally contingently but once it happens it appears like fate. Hegel saw in such a perfect way this, as it were, retroactive reversal of contingency into necessity. Something contingently happens but once it’s here it’s necessary. Okay, you asked basically three or four questions here, masked as one. Okay, let me try to be brief enough. First about bringing all these aspects together. You know, I don't like so much big synthesis. You know, and I will give you one theoretical test here. You know, it's not a chance that psychoanalysis is called psychoanalysis. If you want to identify an idiot, it's the guy who says but Freud does only psychoanalysis, now we need someone to put all together in a synthesis. Wrong question. Analysis it’s already as it were its own synthesis. So back to your final question which was about... I can only give you a very of course abstract answer, abstract in the Hegelian sense of just a scheme, because to develop it would need much more time, precise references. But my idea is, this may tough, sound tough for some hardline Marxists. My idea is that the 20th century Marxism, but even the Marxism of Marx, okay he wasn’t a Marxist but let’s call it Marxist teaching, was too much part of what I ironically like to refer to as Hölderlin paradigm. Hölderlin, the German poet, whose best known line, the best, the greatest hit as it were is the one endlessly quoted by Heidegger: Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst das Rettende auch. Where the danger is the greatest, there also the saving redeeming dimension emerges. This vision of history that we are now at the moment of greatest crisis, like at the very bottom, but at this point there is a possibility of turning it around. Like isn’t this what, for example, all Heidegger is about? With technology the very essence of humanity is in danger, but possibility of what Heidegger calls Kehre, reversal, new event, new disclosure of being. Even Marx, in, isn’t the basic structure of history, structure of history of his Grundrisse fragments? That history begins with some substantial fullness, primitive societies, then you have gradual alienation which goes on and on, then with proletariat you have utter alienation, the subject is reduced to
unknown
this
this
Slavoj Žižek
pure
pure
unknown
proletarian emptiness, all the wealth opposed to it, but at this point of the most radical alienation there is a possibility of reversal and so on and so on. I, and of course our moment is this moment of crisis where things may turn around. And it's interesting how Marx, Heidegger, even Derrida, even Nietzsche, they all follow this paradigm of we are at the dangerous moment of reversal. Yes, it’s nice that you return to this topic because you know when we, fortunately not you, you in Brazil I mean you are one of the lucky ones, but as I always repeat I was so shocked by this good common sense insight when I recently made a tour of, I went to Singapore, South Korea, China, and
proletarian emptiness, all the wealth opposed to it, but at this point of the most radical alienation there is a possibility of reversal and so on and so on. I, and of course our moment is this moment of crisis where things may turn around. And it's interesting how Marx, Heidegger, even Derrida, even Nietzsche, they all follow this paradigm of we are at the dangerous moment of reversal. Yes, it’s nice that you return to this topic because you know when we, fortunately not you, you in Brazil I mean you are one of the lucky ones, but as I always repeat I was so shocked by this good common sense insight when I recently made a tour of, I went to Singapore, South Korea, China, and
Slavoj Žižek
they started to laugh when I started when I began my deep talk about crisis. They told me what crisis? In China they told me we are growing, South Korea is exploding, Indonesia is exploding, India is exploding, Russia, Brazil, BRIC countries, even, even what was usually the synonym of decay, of deadlock, sub-Saharan Africa is progressing. Okay, it's still horror, but at least it's progressing with regard to what it was before. And they said what crisis? There is only a crisis in Western Europe and maybe up to a point in North America, even there it’s already more ambiguous. And they made a very good remark. They said you leftists like to boast to be anti-Eurocentric, but you who claim leftists that today we are in
they started to laugh when I started when I began my deep talk about crisis. They told me what crisis? In China they told me we are growing, South Korea is exploding, Indonesia is exploding, India is exploding, Russia, Brazil, BRIC countries, even, even what was usually the synonym of decay, of deadlock, sub-Saharan Africa is progressing. Okay, it's still horror, but at least it's progressing with regard to what it was before. And they said what crisis? There is only a crisis in Western Europe and maybe up to a point in North America, even there it’s already more ambiguous. And they made a very good remark. They said you leftists like to boast to be anti-Eurocentric, but you who claim leftists that today we are in
unknown
a crisis, you here display your absolute Eurocentrism. And I nonetheless tried to be a Eurocentric leftist in my reply. I told them yes, I agree
a crisis, you here display your absolute Eurocentrism. And I nonetheless tried to be a Eurocentric leftist in my reply. I told them yes, I agree
Slavoj Žižek
with them. But my line, counter-line of
with them. But my line, counter-line of
unknown
counter-argumentation
counter-argumentation
Slavoj Žižek
went in two directions. I said first, yes I agree at this immediate economic level if you measure the bruto product and so on, of course it’s only Western Europe which is in crisis. I am nonetheless worried about what this new form of capitalism which is more and more imposing itself, what will it be? And my thesis is here very naive, not because of any special love of Europe, that this new capitalism will be more and more what we call capitalism with Asian values. But I repeat immediately I don’t mean with this some Asian primitivism or despotism, but simply a more, much more autocratic capitalism. Not so immediately and radically, but I think if you look at the totality you can see clear signs that gradually, if I may put it in terms of marriage and divorce, the eternal marriage between democracy and capitalism is not yet broken but how should I put it, both parties are already writing divorce papers, no? I am not saying it’s simply over. I am saying and you know with whom I agree here? With my right-wing friend Peter Sloterdijk who had a wonderful idea. He told me once I met him at an airport and he told me he is thinking a very nice simple question. He tried to imagine years from now, in future, to which person from our epoch will they be building monuments? And his answer was Lee Kuan Yew, the founder of modern Singapore who is precisely the inventor of authoritarian capitalism. You know that when Deng Xiaoping started reforms, he visited Singapore. I saw it on TV when he said Singapore should be the model for China. And I claim that something which is nonetheless precious in European legacy, you know sense of radical democracy, equality, all that is threatened. Point two, even if capitalism explodes and we have material progress, this doesn’t mean that there will be less revolts. I made a very sad observation. You know that revolts, revolutions don’t happen when things are at their worst. No, they happen usually when situation is already opening up a little bit and this gradual opening gives rise
went in two directions. I said first, yes I agree at this immediate economic level if you measure the bruto product and so on, of course it’s only Western Europe which is in crisis. I am nonetheless worried about what this new form of capitalism which is more and more imposing itself, what will it be? And my thesis is here very naive, not because of any special love of Europe, that this new capitalism will be more and more what we call capitalism with Asian values. But I repeat immediately I don’t mean with this some Asian primitivism or despotism, but simply a more, much more autocratic capitalism. Not so immediately and radically, but I think if you look at the totality you can see clear signs that gradually, if I may put it in terms of marriage and divorce, the eternal marriage between democracy and capitalism is not yet broken but how should I put it, both parties are already writing divorce papers, no? I am not saying it’s simply over. I am saying and you know with whom I agree here? With my right-wing friend Peter Sloterdijk who had a wonderful idea. He told me once I met him at an airport and he told me he is thinking a very nice simple question. He tried to imagine years from now, in future, to which person from our epoch will they be building monuments? And his answer was Lee Kuan Yew, the founder of modern Singapore who is precisely the inventor of authoritarian capitalism. You know that when Deng Xiaoping started reforms, he visited Singapore. I saw it on TV when he said Singapore should be the model for China. And I claim that something which is nonetheless precious in European legacy, you know sense of radical democracy, equality, all that is threatened. Point two, even if capitalism explodes and we have material progress, this doesn’t mean that there will be less revolts. I made a very sad observation. You know that revolts, revolutions don’t happen when things are at their worst. No, they happen usually when situation is already opening up a little bit and this gradual opening gives rise
unknown
to expectations which are then not satisfied. Like even the dark example the Egypt of Mubarak. It was already a relative
to expectations which are then not satisfied. Like even the dark example the Egypt of Mubarak. It was already a relative
unknown
opening and so on. Or to give
opening and so on. Or to give
Slavoj Žižek
you the ultimate example, the great anti-communist revolt in Hungary. It wasn’t in the darkest of Stalinism. Imre Nagy, who was later shot by Russians, was already the prime minister, there already was an opening. So this relative expansion still of capitalism for me will on the contrary render the situation even more destabilizing, which is why with all the progress, I was shocked when I was answering everyone about the situation in China. You know the other side of Chinese miracle is that China is in an eternal emergency state. You know that they told me official representatives that they have they use this Confucian term, serious disturbances per year. I asked them cut the bullshit, what do you mean by this term? They told me serious disturbance is a local protest, demonstration, which grows so strong that local police cannot deal with this, army units or special police. You see. Okay, I am of course an absolute believer in the primacy of theory. As was Marx I claim in spite of all the... if any, isn’t this a wonderful irony when Marx says in the thesis 'Philosophers have only interpreted the world, the time is to change it'? Ask yourself a stupid naive question. But my god, were philosophers really doing this? Practically all the philosophers that I know had a big plan how to radically change the world, beginning with Plato, Republic and so on. The only philosopher who really only wanted to interpret the world, who consciously renounced changing it is Hegel. And isn’t the beautiful irony he was the one who maybe most contributed to changing the world? But you touched I think another very deep problem. We are now jumping a little bit, sorry I cannot answer everything, which is that the present crisis, we shouldn’t mask as crisis mostly in Western Europe but also Middle East and so on, is I think, I’m sorry to say
you the ultimate example, the great anti-communist revolt in Hungary. It wasn’t in the darkest of Stalinism. Imre Nagy, who was later shot by Russians, was already the prime minister, there already was an opening. So this relative expansion still of capitalism for me will on the contrary render the situation even more destabilizing, which is why with all the progress, I was shocked when I was answering everyone about the situation in China. You know the other side of Chinese miracle is that China is in an eternal emergency state. You know that they told me official representatives that they have they use this Confucian term, serious disturbances per year. I asked them cut the bullshit, what do you mean by this term? They told me serious disturbance is a local protest, demonstration, which grows so strong that local police cannot deal with this, army units or special police. You see. Okay, I am of course an absolute believer in the primacy of theory. As was Marx I claim in spite of all the... if any, isn’t this a wonderful irony when Marx says in the thesis 'Philosophers have only interpreted the world, the time is to change it'? Ask yourself a stupid naive question. But my god, were philosophers really doing this? Practically all the philosophers that I know had a big plan how to radically change the world, beginning with Plato, Republic and so on. The only philosopher who really only wanted to interpret the world, who consciously renounced changing it is Hegel. And isn’t the beautiful irony he was the one who maybe most contributed to changing the world? But you touched I think another very deep problem. We are now jumping a little bit, sorry I cannot answer everything, which is that the present crisis, we shouldn’t mask as crisis mostly in Western Europe but also Middle East and so on, is I think, I’m sorry to say
unknown
this, but the way I see it, it is nonetheless a terrible defeat for the left. Why? You
this, but the way I see it, it is nonetheless a terrible defeat for the left. Why? You
Slavoj Žižek
know I remember precisely in the era that you mentioned years ago, radical left position was usually 'oh we live in a relative prosperity but don’t be duped, this is an illusion, there will be crisis'. Okay fine, now we have a crisis and where is a revolutionary force, a revolutionary program? Nowhere, it’s an extreme frustration like we get something that we almost in Greece and so on can resemble if not a revolutionary situation then at least a demand for radical change. But I don’t see any political agent being able to transform this into some kind of a positive project. And I am not now asking the impossible, give us a detailed blueprint. For example, I spent month Occupy Wall Street or in Frankfurt, London, and I was always asking the demonstration there the simple Freudian question that Freud was asking women, you know 'What do you want?', you know Freud, 'What does the woman want?'. I think it’s much more difficult to answer what do the protesters want. No no you see, here we need Hegel, you know? Hegel is for me precisely the thinker which keeps optimism going when things appear to go wrong. Hegel comes after the French Revolution and says okay it appears although not to me to him that with terror and so on things went wrong but is it really all lost? Didn’t we nonetheless gain many things that we are not even aware of? And this would be my more delicate Hegelian answer. Okay let’s say now in Egypt, horrible, it’s obvious that the worst scenario is gradually realizing itself, the corrupted pro-American army and the Islamists made a big, if I may use ironically this term from Italian communism, historical compromise at the expense of the true agent of the Arab Spring. But it’s not that simple as that. Friends are telling me the civil society is awakened in Egypt. You have incredible networks of for the first time feminists, trade unions, students, it’s an explosion. It’s there, it’s there and it will explode again and again. The same as in Iran. Who would have expected something which was wonderful for me like Mousavi, who was not a pro-Western liberal reformist but the re-emergence of the more emancipatory aspect of the Khomeini revolution itself. So again I think, you know of course that first, you know in a proper process of liberation, if you allow me a lovingly ironic remark, it goes the same as if there are some and at least you
know I remember precisely in the era that you mentioned years ago, radical left position was usually 'oh we live in a relative prosperity but don’t be duped, this is an illusion, there will be crisis'. Okay fine, now we have a crisis and where is a revolutionary force, a revolutionary program? Nowhere, it’s an extreme frustration like we get something that we almost in Greece and so on can resemble if not a revolutionary situation then at least a demand for radical change. But I don’t see any political agent being able to transform this into some kind of a positive project. And I am not now asking the impossible, give us a detailed blueprint. For example, I spent month Occupy Wall Street or in Frankfurt, London, and I was always asking the demonstration there the simple Freudian question that Freud was asking women, you know 'What do you want?', you know Freud, 'What does the woman want?'. I think it’s much more difficult to answer what do the protesters want. No no you see, here we need Hegel, you know? Hegel is for me precisely the thinker which keeps optimism going when things appear to go wrong. Hegel comes after the French Revolution and says okay it appears although not to me to him that with terror and so on things went wrong but is it really all lost? Didn’t we nonetheless gain many things that we are not even aware of? And this would be my more delicate Hegelian answer. Okay let’s say now in Egypt, horrible, it’s obvious that the worst scenario is gradually realizing itself, the corrupted pro-American army and the Islamists made a big, if I may use ironically this term from Italian communism, historical compromise at the expense of the true agent of the Arab Spring. But it’s not that simple as that. Friends are telling me the civil society is awakened in Egypt. You have incredible networks of for the first time feminists, trade unions, students, it’s an explosion. It’s there, it’s there and it will explode again and again. The same as in Iran. Who would have expected something which was wonderful for me like Mousavi, who was not a pro-Western liberal reformist but the re-emergence of the more emancipatory aspect of the Khomeini revolution itself. So again I think, you know of course that first, you know in a proper process of liberation, if you allow me a lovingly ironic remark, it goes the same as if there are some and at least you
unknown
are movie lovers here. You know the American
are movie lovers here. You know the American
unknown
philosopher Stanley Cavell wrote a wonderful book on comedies of remarriage. Hollywood tradition in late 30s and 40s where you have a couple who marries in enthusiasm, then enthusiasm disintegrates, they divorce, and then they meet and marry again, and this is the true love. I think the same thing should be in authentic social change. First you have the, you know this, sorry for the tasteless metaphor, orgasmic moment 'oh we were all crying, one million people on Tahrir Square', then the enthusiasm is over, but then the true fight begins, then the real questions emerge and so on and so on. No, the true revolution has to be repeated. I am afraid, well I am afraid to make here auto-, judgment with precision and authority. I can only give you my
philosopher Stanley Cavell wrote a wonderful book on comedies of remarriage. Hollywood tradition in late 30s and 40s where you have a couple who marries in enthusiasm, then enthusiasm disintegrates, they divorce, and then they meet and marry again, and this is the true love. I think the same thing should be in authentic social change. First you have the, you know this, sorry for the tasteless metaphor, orgasmic moment 'oh we were all crying, one million people on Tahrir Square', then the enthusiasm is over, but then the true fight begins, then the real questions emerge and so on and so on. No, the true revolution has to be repeated. I am afraid, well I am afraid to make here auto-, judgment with precision and authority. I can only give you my
Slavoj Žižek
opinion because like I mean don’t treat me as a, as a colonizing wise guy from Europe who comes here to tell you what really happens here. I had this experience with my friends from New Left Review when I visited in London, Tariq Ali and Perry Anderson told me 'Explain to me everything what really went on in Yugoslavia where I came from'. But this may surprise you. Here I will try to maintain the same ambiguity. Apropos Chavez, I repeat, I had many critical remarks about him. I'm far from simply celebrating Chavez whatever. He did incredible stupid things I think, the way he messed economic politics, the way he, it’s clear he had too much money so instead of solving problems really he was often covering them up by throwing money at them. His foreign policy, my god, Lukashenko, his friend, is he crazy and so on. But we can do all this. But again, what I already mentioned I think, let’s make something clear. He was and this was authentic I think. He was well aware again that the problem of those in favelas out and so on cannot be solved through humanitarian charity and so on and they have to be included into political life, somehow turned into active political agents. And besides all things that I admitted Chavez did and are very problematic, this let's be frank he did. As to Bolivia, I almost prefer Bolivia to Venezuela because it’s much more difficult there. I know of course he is kind of a friend of mine, comrade theorists, you know Linera. And when I spoke with him privately what I liked about him is how open and pragmatic was he with concrete appreciation. For example, you usually the Bolivian ideology, not Bolivar, Bolivia, is not only representative democracy parties but also social movements and so on. But he told me clearly that he doesn't have great illusions about this. He told me 'Okay you have tribes indigenous people who organize themselves in movements'. What does this mean? That their representatives move to La Paz where they get corrupted and and then they mostly fight each other who will get more money for
opinion because like I mean don’t treat me as a, as a colonizing wise guy from Europe who comes here to tell you what really happens here. I had this experience with my friends from New Left Review when I visited in London, Tariq Ali and Perry Anderson told me 'Explain to me everything what really went on in Yugoslavia where I came from'. But this may surprise you. Here I will try to maintain the same ambiguity. Apropos Chavez, I repeat, I had many critical remarks about him. I'm far from simply celebrating Chavez whatever. He did incredible stupid things I think, the way he messed economic politics, the way he, it’s clear he had too much money so instead of solving problems really he was often covering them up by throwing money at them. His foreign policy, my god, Lukashenko, his friend, is he crazy and so on. But we can do all this. But again, what I already mentioned I think, let’s make something clear. He was and this was authentic I think. He was well aware again that the problem of those in favelas out and so on cannot be solved through humanitarian charity and so on and they have to be included into political life, somehow turned into active political agents. And besides all things that I admitted Chavez did and are very problematic, this let's be frank he did. As to Bolivia, I almost prefer Bolivia to Venezuela because it’s much more difficult there. I know of course he is kind of a friend of mine, comrade theorists, you know Linera. And when I spoke with him privately what I liked about him is how open and pragmatic was he with concrete appreciation. For example, you usually the Bolivian ideology, not Bolivar, Bolivia, is not only representative democracy parties but also social movements and so on. But he told me clearly that he doesn't have great illusions about this. He told me 'Okay you have tribes indigenous people who organize themselves in movements'. What does this mean? That their representatives move to La Paz where they get corrupted and and then they mostly fight each other who will get more money for
unknown
their tribe of groups. So you know he is I think the best combination that I know of principled politics
their tribe of groups. So you know he is I think the best combination that I know of principled politics
Slavoj Žižek
but combined with a very healthy pragmatic sense. As to other examples, I may disappoint you
but combined with a very healthy pragmatic sense. As to other examples, I may disappoint you
unknown
here but concerning for example Argentina, if anything I am more critical there. I think okay there may be some
here but concerning for example Argentina, if anything I am more critical there. I think okay there may be some
unknown
social programs blah blah blah, but here I’m a hardline Marxist. I’m asking is really, is it just that a good guy who tries to help the poor is in power, blah blah blah I don’t care, Hitler tried this ultimately no? Or is really at least at some level or at least people try to see some authentic new social form to emerge. Because you know what’s for me the big taboo which has to fall, as I already mentioned I think, all this bullshit about celebrating direct democracy and self-organization against big alienated state. I’m almost tempted to say that this is also part of my return from Marx to Hegel. We need strong organized state, not even state, trans-state to confront problems like biogenetics, ecology and so
social programs blah blah blah, but here I’m a hardline Marxist. I’m asking is really, is it just that a good guy who tries to help the poor is in power, blah blah blah I don’t care, Hitler tried this ultimately no? Or is really at least at some level or at least people try to see some authentic new social form to emerge. Because you know what’s for me the big taboo which has to fall, as I already mentioned I think, all this bullshit about celebrating direct democracy and self-organization against big alienated state. I’m almost tempted to say that this is also part of my return from Marx to Hegel. We need strong organized state, not even state, trans-state to confront problems like biogenetics, ecology and so
Slavoj Žižek
on. We will need incredibly strong trans-state collective actions. How to do this, not through local engaged participatory democracy. You know, so problems are elsewhere. So my attitude towards Latin America is that, maybe this will disappoint you, while I of course appreciate things done, even if many of my more radical leftist friends are very critical of Workers' Party and Lula’s regime here, I am also but I would say pragmatically at least within the stupid world in which we live, I mean he did make things better. You know why it’s Workers' Party government important for all the world? This is an important message. Because the ideology of big countries, Western Europe, United States, I mean big in the sense of most developed, is always 'oh
on. We will need incredibly strong trans-state collective actions. How to do this, not through local engaged participatory democracy. You know, so problems are elsewhere. So my attitude towards Latin America is that, maybe this will disappoint you, while I of course appreciate things done, even if many of my more radical leftist friends are very critical of Workers' Party and Lula’s regime here, I am also but I would say pragmatically at least within the stupid world in which we live, I mean he did make things better. You know why it’s Workers' Party government important for all the world? This is an important message. Because the ideology of big countries, Western Europe, United States, I mean big in the sense of most developed, is always 'oh
unknown
we live in a system of global capitalism,
we live in a system of global capitalism,
Slavoj Žižek
you respect rules or not, you can't'. No, at least Brazil showed that no, the rules are not as determined as it may be. You still have openings here and there. So no I, you will not get from me some typical leftist celebration of Latin America which I despise. You know why? Because the typical corruption of European leftist is: we like to have good jobs there at universities and we love revolutions on one condition: that they happen far enough. You know, like our heart likes to bleed for Cuba and so on. So I'm critical but basically positively disposed to, but just the last thing, unfortunately you may disagree, this is a critical thesis, I don’t think you, by you I mean Latin America, really produced till now anything which has a global meaning in the sense that it really can serve as a model for Europe or whatever. Here I radically disagree with my colleague Tariq Ali who claims 'oh Europe should just look to Latin America'. No thanks. Let me tell you a story which may amuse some of the public, which I use I think in one of my earlier books. I was, totally as a private citizen, I didn’t want to become caught in any propaganda,
you respect rules or not, you can't'. No, at least Brazil showed that no, the rules are not as determined as it may be. You still have openings here and there. So no I, you will not get from me some typical leftist celebration of Latin America which I despise. You know why? Because the typical corruption of European leftist is: we like to have good jobs there at universities and we love revolutions on one condition: that they happen far enough. You know, like our heart likes to bleed for Cuba and so on. So I'm critical but basically positively disposed to, but just the last thing, unfortunately you may disagree, this is a critical thesis, I don’t think you, by you I mean Latin America, really produced till now anything which has a global meaning in the sense that it really can serve as a model for Europe or whatever. Here I radically disagree with my colleague Tariq Ali who claims 'oh Europe should just look to Latin America'. No thanks. Let me tell you a story which may amuse some of the public, which I use I think in one of my earlier books. I was, totally as a private citizen, I didn’t want to become caught in any propaganda,
unknown
with two friends visiting Cuba around And just on street I started to talk with a guy he addressed us and he was pro-official, that guy. And what shocked me is that he was not
with two friends visiting Cuba around And just on street I started to talk with a guy he addressed us and he was pro-official, that guy. And what shocked me is that he was not
Slavoj Žižek
hiding the misery there. He even told us with a certain almost perverse pride 'Do you know that every day in Havana at least one building collapses? You see the misery.' For this was all part of the logic of our very decay is a proof of our authenticity. You see, we didn’t allow ourselves to be corrupted, even if everything is falling apart we remain faithful to socialism. And then I told him something for which I don’t think I will be well remembered there. I told him something very vicious with a play with words. I told him you know in psychoanalytic theory we call this when you boast the loss itself as sign of authenticity the movement of castration. Like you boast your leg as... That’s why no wonder your leader is called Fidel Castro like fidelity to castration and so on. So again, with all the sympathy I know Cuba victim of American imperialism all you want and so on and so on but again I’m with all the respect of my friends who are sympathetic toward Cuba, I’m sorry, it’s not a model for the future in any sense. I agree, it’s more a negative project but in what sense? As I developed in my other books repeatedly, I see, okay first, I know what can be the reaction. The reaction can be if I am such a pessimist, no germs of the new and so on, why then don’t even go on being a communist, no? Why don’t simply say let’s be a modest reformist social democratic pragmatist and so on? Ah here things nonetheless, and that’s why I’m still a communist, even I would emphasize communist not socialist. Because you know socialism is a neutral term, Hitler was a socialist, everyone, you just mention society should stick together harmoniously and you are a socialist. But communist. Because I think that the general tendency of the way capitalism is developing today we are, and that’s the thesis of my other book which was recently translated Living in the End Times, we are simply approaching a certain zero point. Not in the stupid sense of that Maya calendar, you know whatever, but in the simple sense of like certain things are going on and they cannot go on indefinitely. Like with ecology there can be all possible doubts, is there global warming, not whatever, but obviously we are approaching a certain point where like we cannot simply go on with exploitation. As I already mentioned, biogenetics and so on, it’s a certain point. And even in a immanent logic of capital, I think, and this fear of mine is not some leftist peculiarity, it’s shared by many conservative economists in the United States that in the long term I don’t think capitalist private property as institution will be able to deal with so-called intellectual products. It's getting more crazy and crazy. Look at films, everyone can download them and so on and so on and other problems. So I think that my thesis is double here. A: all these problems are precisely problems of commons. What should be there common, accessible as the very foundation of our life? Nature is our commons. Even genetics, it’s our common genetic inheritance. Intellectual property is our commons. And this is why I in contrast to some false Marxist I claim support the theory of some of my Italian colleagues who claim, it’s very nice thesis precisely, that today capitalism up to a point is returning from profit to rent. Namely take a guy like Bill Gates. You must be very artificially twisted to explain his enormous wealth through extra extra exploitation. No, he owns part of what we Marx called general intellect, our common space of knowledge, internet the way... and we are paying him a rent. He privatized commons. So again, this is why I am a communist. We are approaching problems which are problems of commons. Absolutely, even stronger and stronger. Here I oppose Negri and his friends who often claim oh we are in an era of all this blah blah molecular multiplicities, no state. Are we aware that okay states are liberalized in this region? I see I’m turning into an Indian goddess with all that. But you know that I saw a statue of Indian goddess where all the gentle hands and then one hand okay was doing something different. That’s the Indian goddess that I want to be. Sorry let me go on. So all this talk about disappearing nation states maybe but my god, states are playing stronger and stronger role. You cannot imagine a modern efficient capitalism without a stronger and stronger regulatory role of the state. Not only the cases of all highly successful today’s capitalist countries China, Singapore, but state. Even take the models of American capitalism like you know how my friends left and right call Los Angeles area? Socialist Republic of Los Angeles. Because
hiding the misery there. He even told us with a certain almost perverse pride 'Do you know that every day in Havana at least one building collapses? You see the misery.' For this was all part of the logic of our very decay is a proof of our authenticity. You see, we didn’t allow ourselves to be corrupted, even if everything is falling apart we remain faithful to socialism. And then I told him something for which I don’t think I will be well remembered there. I told him something very vicious with a play with words. I told him you know in psychoanalytic theory we call this when you boast the loss itself as sign of authenticity the movement of castration. Like you boast your leg as... That’s why no wonder your leader is called Fidel Castro like fidelity to castration and so on. So again, with all the sympathy I know Cuba victim of American imperialism all you want and so on and so on but again I’m with all the respect of my friends who are sympathetic toward Cuba, I’m sorry, it’s not a model for the future in any sense. I agree, it’s more a negative project but in what sense? As I developed in my other books repeatedly, I see, okay first, I know what can be the reaction. The reaction can be if I am such a pessimist, no germs of the new and so on, why then don’t even go on being a communist, no? Why don’t simply say let’s be a modest reformist social democratic pragmatist and so on? Ah here things nonetheless, and that’s why I’m still a communist, even I would emphasize communist not socialist. Because you know socialism is a neutral term, Hitler was a socialist, everyone, you just mention society should stick together harmoniously and you are a socialist. But communist. Because I think that the general tendency of the way capitalism is developing today we are, and that’s the thesis of my other book which was recently translated Living in the End Times, we are simply approaching a certain zero point. Not in the stupid sense of that Maya calendar, you know whatever, but in the simple sense of like certain things are going on and they cannot go on indefinitely. Like with ecology there can be all possible doubts, is there global warming, not whatever, but obviously we are approaching a certain point where like we cannot simply go on with exploitation. As I already mentioned, biogenetics and so on, it’s a certain point. And even in a immanent logic of capital, I think, and this fear of mine is not some leftist peculiarity, it’s shared by many conservative economists in the United States that in the long term I don’t think capitalist private property as institution will be able to deal with so-called intellectual products. It's getting more crazy and crazy. Look at films, everyone can download them and so on and so on and other problems. So I think that my thesis is double here. A: all these problems are precisely problems of commons. What should be there common, accessible as the very foundation of our life? Nature is our commons. Even genetics, it’s our common genetic inheritance. Intellectual property is our commons. And this is why I in contrast to some false Marxist I claim support the theory of some of my Italian colleagues who claim, it’s very nice thesis precisely, that today capitalism up to a point is returning from profit to rent. Namely take a guy like Bill Gates. You must be very artificially twisted to explain his enormous wealth through extra extra exploitation. No, he owns part of what we Marx called general intellect, our common space of knowledge, internet the way... and we are paying him a rent. He privatized commons. So again, this is why I am a communist. We are approaching problems which are problems of commons. Absolutely, even stronger and stronger. Here I oppose Negri and his friends who often claim oh we are in an era of all this blah blah molecular multiplicities, no state. Are we aware that okay states are liberalized in this region? I see I’m turning into an Indian goddess with all that. But you know that I saw a statue of Indian goddess where all the gentle hands and then one hand okay was doing something different. That’s the Indian goddess that I want to be. Sorry let me go on. So all this talk about disappearing nation states maybe but my god, states are playing stronger and stronger role. You cannot imagine a modern efficient capitalism without a stronger and stronger regulatory role of the state. Not only the cases of all highly successful today’s capitalist countries China, Singapore, but state. Even take the models of American capitalism like you know how my friends left and right call Los Angeles area? Socialist Republic of Los Angeles. Because
unknown
apart from Hollywood it’s totally integrated with state into defense contract... So again, in today’s world because for example to build a factory you need energy,
apart from Hollywood it’s totally integrated with state into defense contract... So again, in today’s world because for example to build a factory you need energy,
Slavoj Žižek
ecology, blah blah blah. No, what self-organization? Yes but state has to provide the common... okay maybe a different state but we need a strong central regulatory power more than ever. It’s I think the standards themselves have changed. First about Benjamin, you know he was still for me way too much eschatological in the sense that I determined. He waited for a big final awakening revolution which will then even redeem retroactively all the previous failed revolutions. But what I like in his work is a precise metaphor he uses, you know referring to that idea, more Stalinist than Marxist, that there is a higher historical necessity and that we Marxists are riding on the train of history. Like we are safe, history is with us. And Benjamin says that no, today the point is no longer to ride the train of history, we are all on that train, but to pull the emergency brake. So that it stops. And I coming from Eastern Europe with our melancholic sense of humor
ecology, blah blah blah. No, what self-organization? Yes but state has to provide the common... okay maybe a different state but we need a strong central regulatory power more than ever. It’s I think the standards themselves have changed. First about Benjamin, you know he was still for me way too much eschatological in the sense that I determined. He waited for a big final awakening revolution which will then even redeem retroactively all the previous failed revolutions. But what I like in his work is a precise metaphor he uses, you know referring to that idea, more Stalinist than Marxist, that there is a higher historical necessity and that we Marxists are riding on the train of history. Like we are safe, history is with us. And Benjamin says that no, today the point is no longer to ride the train of history, we are all on that train, but to pull the emergency brake. So that it stops. And I coming from Eastern Europe with our melancholic sense of humor
unknown
I totally
I totally
Slavoj Žižek
agree with this you know because usually pessimist are pacified by communists who tell you listen, we may be in a tunnel but we already see the light at the end of the tunnel. My instant answer is of course there is a light at
agree with this you know because usually pessimist are pacified by communists who tell you listen, we may be in a tunnel but we already see the light at the end of the tunnel. My instant answer is of course there is a light at
unknown
the end of the tunnel, it’s another train coming towards us, you know? So where this metaphor of Benjamin is true is that on the contrary the train of history, by this I mean simply the spontaneous tendency how things will evolve if nothing is done, we just if we just let things deploy, go on the way they are, are towards, no I don’t want to be here
the end of the tunnel, it’s another train coming towards us, you know? So where this metaphor of Benjamin is true is that on the contrary the train of history, by this I mean simply the spontaneous tendency how things will evolve if nothing is done, we just if we just let things deploy, go on the way they are, are towards, no I don’t want to be here
unknown
specific, it need not be this great catastrophe
specific, it need not be this great catastrophe
Slavoj Žižek
or whatever but definitely a new society which will be much more authoritarian divided, divided in the sense of new forms of apartheid, people who are in, people who are out, no longer equality. Like it’s absolutely clear what is happening already now in the United States in medicine. Are you aware that if it goes the way it goes, in years the rich will gradually become literally a race of their own? You know with genetically modified children they can afford and the saddest thing is that the seat of this is today China. I visited in Shanghai they showed me friends some exclusive clinics in the suburbs where rich Western people go and already do genetic manipulations on embryos and so on and so on. So again this is for me the aspect of Benjamin which works. So yes there is a possible catastrophe which we don’t know how it will look. But I’m not saying there is any necessity or safe way to counter it. We have, this is the lesson of Hegel, we have to take the risk, we have to accept this basic alienation of social life. Not alienation in the immediately in the Marxist sense of some divine substance, capital controlling, but alienation in the sense of when you act you never know what will be the result, we know we cannot control the effects. Something, and this is a deeply Hegelian idea. You want freedom, puff, you enter the revolutionary terror and so on and so on. Sorry, what do you mean by Middle East is fine? Maybe the Emirates, but otherwise Egypt is not fine, Tunis, all these revolution Arab Spring countries are rather... no first let me say something and here I agree with you precisely by remaining a Marxist. Today when it’s so fashionable to claim oh against global capitalism we should return to some primordial, local, pre-modern forms of wisdom and so on. For example when I was in Bolivia, somebody confronted me with that famous statement by Morales, you know? Two years ago I think Evo Morales wrote a letter to world leaders blaming capitalism for everything and claiming capitalism has killed Mother Earth. Then I said something which didn’t help my popularity in Bolivia. My reaction was at least one good thing that capitalism did, you know? Because I think that again this idea of some Mother Earth primordial
or whatever but definitely a new society which will be much more authoritarian divided, divided in the sense of new forms of apartheid, people who are in, people who are out, no longer equality. Like it’s absolutely clear what is happening already now in the United States in medicine. Are you aware that if it goes the way it goes, in years the rich will gradually become literally a race of their own? You know with genetically modified children they can afford and the saddest thing is that the seat of this is today China. I visited in Shanghai they showed me friends some exclusive clinics in the suburbs where rich Western people go and already do genetic manipulations on embryos and so on and so on. So again this is for me the aspect of Benjamin which works. So yes there is a possible catastrophe which we don’t know how it will look. But I’m not saying there is any necessity or safe way to counter it. We have, this is the lesson of Hegel, we have to take the risk, we have to accept this basic alienation of social life. Not alienation in the immediately in the Marxist sense of some divine substance, capital controlling, but alienation in the sense of when you act you never know what will be the result, we know we cannot control the effects. Something, and this is a deeply Hegelian idea. You want freedom, puff, you enter the revolutionary terror and so on and so on. Sorry, what do you mean by Middle East is fine? Maybe the Emirates, but otherwise Egypt is not fine, Tunis, all these revolution Arab Spring countries are rather... no first let me say something and here I agree with you precisely by remaining a Marxist. Today when it’s so fashionable to claim oh against global capitalism we should return to some primordial, local, pre-modern forms of wisdom and so on. For example when I was in Bolivia, somebody confronted me with that famous statement by Morales, you know? Two years ago I think Evo Morales wrote a letter to world leaders blaming capitalism for everything and claiming capitalism has killed Mother Earth. Then I said something which didn’t help my popularity in Bolivia. My reaction was at least one good thing that capitalism did, you know? Because I think that again this idea of some Mother Earth primordial
unknown
holistic unity which we evil modern people threw out of balance and then we have somehow to return to the
holistic unity which we evil modern people threw out of balance and then we have somehow to return to the
Slavoj Žižek
Mother, no? This is absolutely the worst wrong way to approach ecological problems. So again, where I, if I see your point correctly, where I agree with it, precisely as a Marxist, you know that Marx always emphasized you we have to go through capitalist modernization. Maybe we go through it over, but we go through it. Which is why, for example, it’s a short and interesting story. When I was in India, I engaged in a debate about multiculturalism and some people attacked me there that don’t I see that my form is already a colonial form? Like we speak in English and for them English is not natural, it’s the language of colonizers. So isn’t that they are already in disadvantage so that their very project of emancipation had to use the language of the enemy? I exploded back. I said first, it was typical how they assumed that my language is English. Sorry, I’m a Slovene, it’s typical big nation racism. It’s okay for me to talk English, no the big Indians not. But more important point that I told them, this is crucial, this I think is pertinent for what you asked. I told them okay English was imposed on you by colonizers. But are you aware that the very
Mother, no? This is absolutely the worst wrong way to approach ecological problems. So again, where I, if I see your point correctly, where I agree with it, precisely as a Marxist, you know that Marx always emphasized you we have to go through capitalist modernization. Maybe we go through it over, but we go through it. Which is why, for example, it’s a short and interesting story. When I was in India, I engaged in a debate about multiculturalism and some people attacked me there that don’t I see that my form is already a colonial form? Like we speak in English and for them English is not natural, it’s the language of colonizers. So isn’t that they are already in disadvantage so that their very project of emancipation had to use the language of the enemy? I exploded back. I said first, it was typical how they assumed that my language is English. Sorry, I’m a Slovene, it’s typical big nation racism. It’s okay for me to talk English, no the big Indians not. But more important point that I told them, this is crucial, this I think is pertinent for what you asked. I told them okay English was imposed on you by colonizers. But are you aware that the very
unknown
dream of modern emancipated decolonized India that you defend did not pre-exist colonization? It was with by being colonized, that’s the Hegelian paradox. You lose something but what you lose was produced retroactively by this very colonization. And then I hope this is not too strong for your viewers... I used a metaphor there, I warn you, a very nasty story. I told them that to return to pre-colonized wisdom or whatever is a nightmare, it’s precisely what colonizers want. Because it’s literally true. You have a basic traditional text of Indian caste system called Laws of Manu. You know that it was systematized in 18th century by the British to have proper ideology to rule those down there. And then I used this story, okay warning obscenity. There is a wonderful joke about Jesus Christ told to me in Ramallah by a Christian Palestinian. It’s the last evening before crucifixion, Christ and they all know he will be
dream of modern emancipated decolonized India that you defend did not pre-exist colonization? It was with by being colonized, that’s the Hegelian paradox. You lose something but what you lose was produced retroactively by this very colonization. And then I hope this is not too strong for your viewers... I used a metaphor there, I warn you, a very nasty story. I told them that to return to pre-colonized wisdom or whatever is a nightmare, it’s precisely what colonizers want. Because it’s literally true. You have a basic traditional text of Indian caste system called Laws of Manu. You know that it was systematized in 18th century by the British to have proper ideology to rule those down there. And then I used this story, okay warning obscenity. There is a wonderful joke about Jesus Christ told to me in Ramallah by a Christian Palestinian. It’s the last evening before crucifixion, Christ and they all know he will be
Slavoj Žižek
arrested and he will die, and the people there his apostles worry, you know like my god our Lord did so much for us but he didn’t have any fun in life, doesn’t he deserve some fun at least the last night before he dies? So they call Mary Magdalene and told her listen, our Lord needs some fun, wouldn’t you go in and seduce him? No, of course Mary Magdalene 'it’s impossible', okay. She goes in, after five minutes she comes out pale and shouting like crazy. They ask her what was it? And she says it started well, I danced in front of him, he looked with interest at me, then I raised my skirt, then I spread my legs, then he looks closely and then he looked at my sex and said 'oh what a horrible wound' and put a palm on it and closed it all. Like the return to pre-colonial roots would be something like that. And I don’t want to be delivered safe like that. You know that’s the deepest also insight of Marx. Capitalism is not simply negative, it’s the greatest thing, but where we maybe disagree, I’m not as optimistic as you when you said it develops, develops, but believe me, it will go on developing but with new and new tension, ecological tension, immanent economic tensions. Here I’m a little bit more pessimist. Well I’m almost tempted to give you here you know one of the best Stalinist jokes. You know the joke is you know that they debated in Politburo 'Will there be money in communism or not?'. There were Bukharin revisionists who said of course money is natural, there will be money. Then there were leftists, Trotskyists, who said no in communism there will be no money. And then Comrade Stalin proposed a solution. He said no it will be a dialectical synthesis. There will be money and there will not be money. And they ask him 'Comrade Stalin, how do you mean this?'. And he said simple: some people will have money and other people will not have money, you know? So I, what I’m saying is that I think that, okay let me put it like this. This is a very complex problem because on the one hand there are many attempts, one of them developed by our
arrested and he will die, and the people there his apostles worry, you know like my god our Lord did so much for us but he didn’t have any fun in life, doesn’t he deserve some fun at least the last night before he dies? So they call Mary Magdalene and told her listen, our Lord needs some fun, wouldn’t you go in and seduce him? No, of course Mary Magdalene 'it’s impossible', okay. She goes in, after five minutes she comes out pale and shouting like crazy. They ask her what was it? And she says it started well, I danced in front of him, he looked with interest at me, then I raised my skirt, then I spread my legs, then he looks closely and then he looked at my sex and said 'oh what a horrible wound' and put a palm on it and closed it all. Like the return to pre-colonial roots would be something like that. And I don’t want to be delivered safe like that. You know that’s the deepest also insight of Marx. Capitalism is not simply negative, it’s the greatest thing, but where we maybe disagree, I’m not as optimistic as you when you said it develops, develops, but believe me, it will go on developing but with new and new tension, ecological tension, immanent economic tensions. Here I’m a little bit more pessimist. Well I’m almost tempted to give you here you know one of the best Stalinist jokes. You know the joke is you know that they debated in Politburo 'Will there be money in communism or not?'. There were Bukharin revisionists who said of course money is natural, there will be money. Then there were leftists, Trotskyists, who said no in communism there will be no money. And then Comrade Stalin proposed a solution. He said no it will be a dialectical synthesis. There will be money and there will not be money. And they ask him 'Comrade Stalin, how do you mean this?'. And he said simple: some people will have money and other people will not have money, you know? So I, what I’m saying is that I think that, okay let me put it like this. This is a very complex problem because on the one hand there are many attempts, one of them developed by our
unknown
Japanese friend Kōjin Karatani, to invent a money, let me put it naively, a good money, a money without all the commodity fetishism and so on you know. But like the problem of course is that I unfortunately for psychoanalytic reasons don’t accept
Japanese friend Kōjin Karatani, to invent a money, let me put it naively, a good money, a money without all the commodity fetishism and so on you know. But like the problem of course is that I unfortunately for psychoanalytic reasons don’t accept
Slavoj Žižek
that formula by Marx that you know 'To each one according to his needs and each gives
that formula by Marx that you know 'To each one according to his needs and each gives
unknown
according...'. Because it has the same failure as for example for me Rawls’ theory of justice and so on. It, if there is a lesson in psychoanalysis, is that envy, resentment is the fundamental factor. It’s not what I need objectively. I
according...'. Because it has the same failure as for example for me Rawls’ theory of justice and so on. It, if there is a lesson in psychoanalysis, is that envy, resentment is the fundamental factor. It’s not what I need objectively. I
Slavoj Žižek
may
may
unknown
think I need something, but then I may think I need Coca-Cola, but then I see you drinking Pepsi and I decide no I need more Pepsi, you know? It’s absolutely mediated through envy our needs. Like we must be here very precise. Of course the way money functions
think I need something, but then I may think I need Coca-Cola, but then I see you drinking Pepsi and I decide no I need more Pepsi, you know? It’s absolutely mediated through envy our needs. Like we must be here very precise. Of course the way money functions
Slavoj Žižek
capitalism and so on can be in some sense overcome. But I don’t believe that this logic of of of this basic more basic alienation, you know the logic of envy, which is hinted at by Jacques Lacan when he claims 'my desire is the other's desire'. Like I don’t simply desire. I desire what others have. I desire what others desire and so on and so on. There is a dimension of envy here, but envy not in this simple psychological sense but envy in a much stronger sense. Here we have a great lesson from Freud which is that we don’t know what we want. We literally have to learn through our values and so on what we want. And I will even advocate this through another example beautiful developed by my friend. What we like at the level of pleasures even. I claim sexual intercourse is to be learned. From the standpoint of pure stupid pleasure masturbation is much more practical. As animals we would masturbate. Then you have to, can you imagine how much more difficult copulation is, you have to take into account the other and so on and so on. Or drinking. Remember be honest when you were a small boy or naughty girl as you probably were. You know what's the typical scene? You like fruit juice and so on. Then some older friends tell you, whatever, 'if you give me a kiss I will show you what adults drink', and you try alcohol. And it first tastes bitter, disgusting and so on, but then you learn to love it and so on. You know there is I claim unfortunately a dimension here fundamental for social life. No, unfortunately not. Because you know the lesson is precisely Lenin. Every time that Lenin wrote something as a rule two months later he did the opposite. Look at his State and Revolution. It’s a blueprint for some kind of direct democracy, you know Lenin says there ordinary working women will be, I mean something totally different effectively happen. So but to correct the impression I’m not just saying we should just act blindly and do and don’t make any plans. Of course we have to make speculations, attempts all the time. Just be aware that you know there is always an element of risk, unpredictable and so on, which is very Hegelian. You know what Hegel says explicitly? He says philosophy can only paint gray on gray. No for Hegel this idea of traditional Marxism that some historical agent can learn the trend of history and then act directly as an agent of this trend is too idealist if you want like this. It’s unthinkable, things always for structurally necessary reasons have to go wrong. Not because there is a higher power controlling us but because there is no such power. And that’s incidentally immediately the problem of our politics today. Let me just briefly conclude with another ironic remark. You know old Marxists had a wonderful dream that there is some kind of a high imperialist brain trust, they meet like half every half a year somewhere between Washington and Wall Street and decide everything. Today I’m almost tempted to say it would be very good to at least have such a trust. But what I see more and more in United States, Europe, is that the fiasco of ruling elites, it’s so clear for example in Europe that the ruling elites themselves don’t know what they are doing. It’s tragic to observe how
capitalism and so on can be in some sense overcome. But I don’t believe that this logic of of of this basic more basic alienation, you know the logic of envy, which is hinted at by Jacques Lacan when he claims 'my desire is the other's desire'. Like I don’t simply desire. I desire what others have. I desire what others desire and so on and so on. There is a dimension of envy here, but envy not in this simple psychological sense but envy in a much stronger sense. Here we have a great lesson from Freud which is that we don’t know what we want. We literally have to learn through our values and so on what we want. And I will even advocate this through another example beautiful developed by my friend. What we like at the level of pleasures even. I claim sexual intercourse is to be learned. From the standpoint of pure stupid pleasure masturbation is much more practical. As animals we would masturbate. Then you have to, can you imagine how much more difficult copulation is, you have to take into account the other and so on and so on. Or drinking. Remember be honest when you were a small boy or naughty girl as you probably were. You know what's the typical scene? You like fruit juice and so on. Then some older friends tell you, whatever, 'if you give me a kiss I will show you what adults drink', and you try alcohol. And it first tastes bitter, disgusting and so on, but then you learn to love it and so on. You know there is I claim unfortunately a dimension here fundamental for social life. No, unfortunately not. Because you know the lesson is precisely Lenin. Every time that Lenin wrote something as a rule two months later he did the opposite. Look at his State and Revolution. It’s a blueprint for some kind of direct democracy, you know Lenin says there ordinary working women will be, I mean something totally different effectively happen. So but to correct the impression I’m not just saying we should just act blindly and do and don’t make any plans. Of course we have to make speculations, attempts all the time. Just be aware that you know there is always an element of risk, unpredictable and so on, which is very Hegelian. You know what Hegel says explicitly? He says philosophy can only paint gray on gray. No for Hegel this idea of traditional Marxism that some historical agent can learn the trend of history and then act directly as an agent of this trend is too idealist if you want like this. It’s unthinkable, things always for structurally necessary reasons have to go wrong. Not because there is a higher power controlling us but because there is no such power. And that’s incidentally immediately the problem of our politics today. Let me just briefly conclude with another ironic remark. You know old Marxists had a wonderful dream that there is some kind of a high imperialist brain trust, they meet like half every half a year somewhere between Washington and Wall Street and decide everything. Today I’m almost tempted to say it would be very good to at least have such a trust. But what I see more and more in United States, Europe, is that the fiasco of ruling elites, it’s so clear for example in Europe that the ruling elites themselves don’t know what they are doing. It’s tragic to observe how
unknown
Euro bureaucrats in Brussels are totally improvising and so on and so on. Look at the Americans how blind they are. I was always shocked at how Tea Party Republicans
Euro bureaucrats in Brussels are totally improvising and so on and so on. Look at the Americans how blind they are. I was always shocked at how Tea Party Republicans
Slavoj Žižek
now blame the welfare state excesses for crisis. Sorry, crisis was precisely a pure free market Ayn Rand crisis. You know that Greenspan is a objectivist, it’s a direct pupil of Ayn Rand, the ultimate capitalist ideologist. So just to conclude and another important lesson to be learned from this. You know some people even our friend Fred Jameson, for this he will join you in re-education camp, like to say we live in a totally cynical era, nobody takes ideology seriously. Like even when United States today speak about freedom who cares they mean it cynically, profit and so on. So we no longer need critique of ideology. No we do. The great lesson of psychoanalysis is that precisely the utter cynics, you know who claim 'huh what values, everything is just brutal power, money, pleasure, sex', they are the most deeply in their illusions. Remember the crisis was not a product of welfare state idealists. It was the product of utter cynics being in power. So that’s a beautiful paradox of how precisely when you think 'forget about all the illusions and so on, just be brutal realist', you are sure to lose. Which is why to conclude Paul Krugman, you know, I don’t always by far agree with
now blame the welfare state excesses for crisis. Sorry, crisis was precisely a pure free market Ayn Rand crisis. You know that Greenspan is a objectivist, it’s a direct pupil of Ayn Rand, the ultimate capitalist ideologist. So just to conclude and another important lesson to be learned from this. You know some people even our friend Fred Jameson, for this he will join you in re-education camp, like to say we live in a totally cynical era, nobody takes ideology seriously. Like even when United States today speak about freedom who cares they mean it cynically, profit and so on. So we no longer need critique of ideology. No we do. The great lesson of psychoanalysis is that precisely the utter cynics, you know who claim 'huh what values, everything is just brutal power, money, pleasure, sex', they are the most deeply in their illusions. Remember the crisis was not a product of welfare state idealists. It was the product of utter cynics being in power. So that’s a beautiful paradox of how precisely when you think 'forget about all the illusions and so on, just be brutal realist', you are sure to lose. Which is why to conclude Paul Krugman, you know, I don’t always by far agree with
unknown
him but he is
him but he is
Slavoj Žižek
intelligent. Because once a journalist asked him a simple question 'Now we know what we did wrong years ago so that we had What do you think would have happened if we were to know this ten years before?'. You know what was his answer? 'Nothing. We would have known but we would have done exactly the same mistakes'. No no, it's a very good question because on the one hand I totally agree. We cannot anymore count on this traditional Marxist ecological idea of gradually the ultimate revolutionary subject working class constitutes itself. Well to be very cynical, in Europe today to be a traditional exploited worker with a permanent job where you are permanently exploited is almost definitely an extremely privileged position. You are very happy if you get that my god, no? So I don’t think again we can count on one agent. And I I think that the problem is elsewhere, the problem is that the system itself, as I said, maybe I’m wrong here too optimist, too pessimist, sorry I’m afraid I’m not, that the system itself will more and more gradually get involved in a crisis and the reactions will be first what is happening now, new forms of apartheid and so on and so on, or whatever. You know there will be again ecological problems, there will be, yes ecological problems. There will be I think much further problems of financial problems.
intelligent. Because once a journalist asked him a simple question 'Now we know what we did wrong years ago so that we had What do you think would have happened if we were to know this ten years before?'. You know what was his answer? 'Nothing. We would have known but we would have done exactly the same mistakes'. No no, it's a very good question because on the one hand I totally agree. We cannot anymore count on this traditional Marxist ecological idea of gradually the ultimate revolutionary subject working class constitutes itself. Well to be very cynical, in Europe today to be a traditional exploited worker with a permanent job where you are permanently exploited is almost definitely an extremely privileged position. You are very happy if you get that my god, no? So I don’t think again we can count on one agent. And I I think that the problem is elsewhere, the problem is that the system itself, as I said, maybe I’m wrong here too optimist, too pessimist, sorry I’m afraid I’m not, that the system itself will more and more gradually get involved in a crisis and the reactions will be first what is happening now, new forms of apartheid and so on and so on, or whatever. You know there will be again ecological problems, there will be, yes ecological problems. There will be I think much further problems of financial problems.
unknown
For example, you know that I didn't like all the thing in Wall Street protests that I really didn't like was this stupid anti-financial capital rhetorics. Today's capitalism needs financial capital. It's this is total pseudo-alternative: less power to the banks, more to the real capital. Real capital needs banks and so on. The so this rhetorics against financial capital, it doesn't work, which means I claim that it's clear and clear that the crisis of was
For example, you know that I didn't like all the thing in Wall Street protests that I really didn't like was this stupid anti-financial capital rhetorics. Today's capitalism needs financial capital. It's this is total pseudo-alternative: less power to the banks, more to the real capital. Real capital needs banks and so on. The so this rhetorics against financial capital, it doesn't work, which means I claim that it's clear and clear that the crisis of was
Slavoj Žižek
not a crisis of evil financial capitalists being too greedy. No, it was we know vaguely today the story. The version which convinced me is that after the digital bubble, they tried to relaunch restart prosperity through, you know easier credit for real estate building blah blah blah and then... So the ultimate cause of the crisis was not a right-wing banker conspiracy, it was even a plan accepted by all parties, maybe even more by Democrats, of how to keep economy going. And again, okay good luck, I hope you are right if you think this can go on and on and on. I doubt. I see. Yeah, but it doesn't change anything. I'm not afraid of it because the effects are still here. You know this is the, this is one of the things the left should avoid. This fear of 'oh we will be manipulated, re-appropriated by the capital' or whatever, you know? Of course it is. So what? All great, my, we can talk about retroactively about marketing strategy in Mozart. If someone was doing very exact, no marketing in politics what to do all the great composers and so on. So what? They remained, the effects are here and so on and so on. You know, I even think I will answer you with a very brief story. I love it of effects of progressive thought. You know Eric Ambler was a progressive detective writer in the late 30s. And in one of his excellent spy novels, a guy, a committed communist explains how he became a communist. He married a very rich woman for a wife and got tired of her company who were rich people. And just to provoke them started to read communist literature and just to provoke them, not believing, advocated this. And then all of a sudden he started to believe. You know I find this a very beautiful dialectical idea. It's not that things are first serious but then degenerate. Something can start as a total manipulation and then who knows it becomes authentic. In the same way, so what? What matters are effects. I don't care if people think I'm a clown blah blah blah. Maybe here and there I make them think. You know that’s important today. To to make people aware, not in any deep moralistic sense, but that the world loses for them this self-evidence. Is it natural that this happens? Why, for example, the example I like is that’s why I’m critical of American liberal ideology, racism... of or tolerance. Of course I am against intolerance. But did you notice this
not a crisis of evil financial capitalists being too greedy. No, it was we know vaguely today the story. The version which convinced me is that after the digital bubble, they tried to relaunch restart prosperity through, you know easier credit for real estate building blah blah blah and then... So the ultimate cause of the crisis was not a right-wing banker conspiracy, it was even a plan accepted by all parties, maybe even more by Democrats, of how to keep economy going. And again, okay good luck, I hope you are right if you think this can go on and on and on. I doubt. I see. Yeah, but it doesn't change anything. I'm not afraid of it because the effects are still here. You know this is the, this is one of the things the left should avoid. This fear of 'oh we will be manipulated, re-appropriated by the capital' or whatever, you know? Of course it is. So what? All great, my, we can talk about retroactively about marketing strategy in Mozart. If someone was doing very exact, no marketing in politics what to do all the great composers and so on. So what? They remained, the effects are here and so on and so on. You know, I even think I will answer you with a very brief story. I love it of effects of progressive thought. You know Eric Ambler was a progressive detective writer in the late 30s. And in one of his excellent spy novels, a guy, a committed communist explains how he became a communist. He married a very rich woman for a wife and got tired of her company who were rich people. And just to provoke them started to read communist literature and just to provoke them, not believing, advocated this. And then all of a sudden he started to believe. You know I find this a very beautiful dialectical idea. It's not that things are first serious but then degenerate. Something can start as a total manipulation and then who knows it becomes authentic. In the same way, so what? What matters are effects. I don't care if people think I'm a clown blah blah blah. Maybe here and there I make them think. You know that’s important today. To to make people aware, not in any deep moralistic sense, but that the world loses for them this self-evidence. Is it natural that this happens? Why, for example, the example I like is that’s why I’m critical of American liberal ideology, racism... of or tolerance. Of course I am against intolerance. But did you notice this
unknown
strange phenomenon that today whenever we speak about racism, feminism or whatever, we always reformulate the problem as the problem of tolerance? Look Martin Luther King. He never uses the term tolerance. He doesn’t say whites should tolerate us more. This tells a lot, you see this is not self-evident. Why are we today automatically conceiving racism as a problem of tolerance? Why? Because it’s a way of course to depoliticize it.
strange phenomenon that today whenever we speak about racism, feminism or whatever, we always reformulate the problem as the problem of tolerance? Look Martin Luther King. He never uses the term tolerance. He doesn’t say whites should tolerate us more. This tells a lot, you see this is not self-evident. Why are we today automatically conceiving racism as a problem of tolerance? Why? Because it’s a way of course to depoliticize it.
Slavoj Žižek
Instead of analyzing legal, economic conditions, it becomes a problem of cultural tolerance. Like why do I hate you if you are black? What are my problems with it? I should go to some psychoanalyst to explain to me my traumas and so on and so on. This is something that I think it's not a total illusion to achieve today. This sense of wonder. Not to explain to people strange things but to make them see the the strange nature, the weird nature of what is happening here all the time in front of our eyes. Okay, on the one hand I think it’s moderately decaying. My ironic remark is that all leftists should start to gather money to build a big monument to George Bush the younger. Because his greatest achievement was that when he started presidency, United States were still some kind of a world policeman. When he ended, my god listen, even a shitty poor country like Afghanistan they cannot... No no serious. Yeah yes, still, but still let’s face it. As the result of Bush presidency, nonetheless de facto United States are today emerging as one of the maybe still the strongest but one of the regional powers. The danger is somewhere else I claim and here as a communist I will say something which may surprise some leftists. For example, China. I
Instead of analyzing legal, economic conditions, it becomes a problem of cultural tolerance. Like why do I hate you if you are black? What are my problems with it? I should go to some psychoanalyst to explain to me my traumas and so on and so on. This is something that I think it's not a total illusion to achieve today. This sense of wonder. Not to explain to people strange things but to make them see the the strange nature, the weird nature of what is happening here all the time in front of our eyes. Okay, on the one hand I think it’s moderately decaying. My ironic remark is that all leftists should start to gather money to build a big monument to George Bush the younger. Because his greatest achievement was that when he started presidency, United States were still some kind of a world policeman. When he ended, my god listen, even a shitty poor country like Afghanistan they cannot... No no serious. Yeah yes, still, but still let’s face it. As the result of Bush presidency, nonetheless de facto United States are today emerging as one of the maybe still the strongest but one of the regional powers. The danger is somewhere else I claim and here as a communist I will say something which may surprise some leftists. For example, China. I
unknown
wish
wish
unknown
all the best to
all the best to
unknown
China. It’s tremendous what they are doing. But let’s face it, what they are doing is often an economic colonialism more brutal than even capitalist colonialism Western today. Ask any Greek person. Do you know
China. It’s tremendous what they are doing. But let’s face it, what they are doing is often an economic colonialism more brutal than even capitalist colonialism Western today. Ask any Greek person. Do you know
Slavoj Žižek
that the Chinese now bought the port of Piraeus, the port of Athens, fired half of the people, prevented trade unions organizing, or what the Chinese are doing in Sudan and so on. So that’s one thing. We should apply the same measure to all of them. Second thing, I’m always distrustful of this cheap futurology which takes the present trend and then you have all this 'oh in years Chinese will beat...'. Maybe I’m old enough, fortunately for you you not, I still remember the crazy era, maybe you do but you also look a little bit younger, you remember in the 1970s the fashion was Japan? And there were books written about how usually the day there was Japan will beat United States. So I’m skeptical about it will just go, who knows what will happen in China? Maybe it will fall apart, the situation is so uncontrollable. I I think that if you ask me, United States will no longer return to this role of unique global power but don’t write them off too quickly. And incidentally in spite of my all criticism of United States I never wanted to be and was a cheap anti-American. My god we are all... I am sincerely, I am sincerely grateful to you to give me this opportunity as a corrupted intellectual like all of us. The only thing we regret is that why
that the Chinese now bought the port of Piraeus, the port of Athens, fired half of the people, prevented trade unions organizing, or what the Chinese are doing in Sudan and so on. So that’s one thing. We should apply the same measure to all of them. Second thing, I’m always distrustful of this cheap futurology which takes the present trend and then you have all this 'oh in years Chinese will beat...'. Maybe I’m old enough, fortunately for you you not, I still remember the crazy era, maybe you do but you also look a little bit younger, you remember in the 1970s the fashion was Japan? And there were books written about how usually the day there was Japan will beat United States. So I’m skeptical about it will just go, who knows what will happen in China? Maybe it will fall apart, the situation is so uncontrollable. I I think that if you ask me, United States will no longer return to this role of unique global power but don’t write them off too quickly. And incidentally in spite of my all criticism of United States I never wanted to be and was a cheap anti-American. My god we are all... I am sincerely, I am sincerely grateful to you to give me this opportunity as a corrupted intellectual like all of us. The only thing we regret is that why
unknown
only one hour and
only one hour and
Slavoj Žižek
a half? Why not put the decimal one back and organize
a half? Why not put the decimal one back and organize
unknown
once a
once a
Slavoj Žižek
maybe hours theoretical debate? Okay. I am grateful and let me tell you something, I am not here just superficially friendly toward you. I don't know a country in the world, maybe but certainly not, maybe Scandinavia, maybe Germany, but not in Europe where
maybe hours theoretical debate? Okay. I am grateful and let me tell you something, I am not here just superficially friendly toward you. I don't know a country in the world, maybe but certainly not, maybe Scandinavia, maybe Germany, but not in Europe where
unknown
such a debate for such a broad public could be made at such a nonetheless
such a debate for such a broad public could be made at such a nonetheless
Slavoj Žižek
relatively serious intellectual level. It simply doesn’t
relatively serious intellectual level. It simply doesn’t
unknown
exist.
exist.